Health insurance doesn't pay for housing, but sometimes that is what a patient needs most. A Medicaid experiment, called Money Follows The Person, helps some elderly and disabled people move out of institutions into their own homes. (Sarah Jane Tribble, Ideastream,
1/5)

In negotiating the creation of the Affordable Care Act, hospitals took a big gamble, with the expectation that they would soon have millions of new Medicaid customers. In states that expanded Medicaid, the bet paid off. Sarah Varney of Kaiser Health News reports on financial gains made by some hospitals as more patients are able to pay their bills, and the heavy price being paid by hospitals in states that opted against expansion. (Sarah Varney,
12/29)

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Summaries Of The News:

News outlets report that Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the Senate's new majority leader, plans to take action to undo some parts of the health law, but he acknowledges that a full repeal is unlikely. Also, some reports examine goals of other Republican congressional leaders

The Washington Post:
New Senate Majority Leader’s Main Goal For GOP: Don’t Be Scary
Mitch McConnell has an unusual admonition for the new Republican majority as it takes over the Senate this week: Don’t be “scary.” The incoming Senate majority leader has set a political goal for the next two years of overseeing a functioning, reasonable majority on Capitol Hill that scores some measured conservative wins, particularly against environmental regulations, but probably not big victories such as a full repeal of the health-care law. McConnell’s priority is to set the stage for a potential GOP presidential victory in 2016. (Kane, 1/4)

The Associated Press:
New GOP Senate Chairmen Aim To Undo Obama Policies
Republican senators poised to lead major committees when the GOP takes charge are intent on pushing back many of President Barack Obama's policies, ... Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, 74, is a former education secretary under President George H.W. Bush, governor and president of the University of Tennessee. … He's called the health care law a "historic mistake" and supports repealing it. He's also said modernizing the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration is a necessity, and he is seeking to examine the FDA's process for drug and device review. (Ohlemacher and Cassata, 1/3)

Bloomberg:
McConnell Outlines Coming Republican Senate Agenda
Repealing and replacing Obama's Affordable Care Act also is a top priority, though Republicans don't have the votes to overcome Obama's veto. They'll try to pick away at it with a piecemeal approach, including repeal of its medical device tax and so-called 40-hour rule. "We'll be voting on things I know he's not going to like," McConnell said. (Giroux, 1/4)

The New York Times:
Republicans Say They’ll Act Fast To Push Agenda
Republicans hope to strike early with measures that are known to have bipartisan support. The House is set to pass legislation this week expediting the Keystone XL pipeline; the Senate is making it the first order of business as well. The House will also take up a measure that would change the new health care law’s definition of full-time workers to those working 40 hours rather than the current 30 hours — another proposal that has drawn backing from Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate. (Hulse, 1/4)

The Wall Street Journal:
GOP Opts For Middle Ground On Legislation
As the new Congress convenes this week, Republicans in charge of both chambers have a challenging task: push through bills on some of the most contentious issues — health, energy and spending — without inflaming tensions on both the left and right that have in the past ground legislating to a halt. Republicans plan to start with narrowly focused legislation, such as approving a long-disputed pipeline project and adjusting the federal health law’s requirement that companies provide health insurance for employees who work as little as 30 hours a week. Bigger-ticket measures to reduce government spending and overhaul the tax code are expected to follow. (Hughes, 1/4)

Politico:
GOP Searches For Elusive Obamacare Fix
Republicans have been vowing to repeal Obamacare for nearly five years. But 2015 could be the year that Republicans finally define how they would replace it. ... The GOP conversations so far are preliminary, and a breakthrough isn’t imminent. Various Republican proposals have been put forth over the years, but forging agreement requires bridging deep ideological differences among Republicans about the scope of a plan, the role and responsibility of the federal government in health care, and how much to money to spend. (Haberkorn, 1/3)

Politico Pro:
Another Year Of Executive Action
The battles in 2015 won’t all be about regulations. There will be plenty of fights in Congress and the courts, too. Obamacare faces more repeal votes with a Republican Senate, as well as a Supreme Court case that could knock out a central piece of the law — the subsidies to help people in most states buy health insurance. (Nather, 1/4)

Politico:
Hill GOP Agenda: Energy, Obamacare
Energy and Obamacare will dominate the first two weeks of Republican control of Capitol Hill. House Republicans will move next week on legislation to jump-start the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline and define a full workweek as being 40 hours for the purpose of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), according to a GOP leadership aide. (Sherman and Min Kim, 1/3)

In addition, The Hill reports on a possible disagreement between the administration and insurers on Medicare payments -

The Hill:
Insurers Gird For New Fight
Health insurance companies are gearing up for another fight with the Obama administration over payments to Medicare Advantage (MA), the private alternative to traditional Medicare. (Viebeck, 1/5)

Officials say more than 7 million Americans have signed up for coverage so far using the health law's marketplaces -- more than 6.5 million of them through the federal exchange. But the health law brings new challenges in some places like Kentucky and Idaho.

The New York Times:
Health Insurance Enrollment Strongest In Federal Marketplace
The Obama administration on Tuesday reported a big increase in new customers signing up for health insurance in Florida, Texas and other states using the federal insurance marketplace. But in states running their own insurance exchanges, the numbers were more modest. ... The report showed the importance of subsidies to people seeking coverage under the Affordable Care Act. Officials said that 87 percent of those selecting health plans for next year in the federal exchange had qualified for subsidies that would reduce their premiums. (Pear, 12/30)

The Washington Post:
At Least 7.1M Signed Up For 2015 Obamacare Plans So Far
As of Dec. 26, 6.5 million people signed up for coverage in federally run exchanges — that includes new enrollments, people actively re-enrolling and existing customers who allowed their coverage to automatically renew, according to the Department of Health and Human Services' weekly enrollment update. A second HHS report, which provides the most comprehensive look at the new enrollment period so far, found that 633,000 people selected coverage in the 14 states running their own health insurance marketplaces as of Dec. 15. That's in addition to those who signed up through the federal exchanges, for a total of roughly 7.1 million. (Millman, 12/30)

The Baltimore Sun:
Some Forced To Buy On Health Insurance Exchanges For The First Time
The outrage was swift and loud. Millions of people were feared to be in danger of losing their health insurance last year because their plans did not comply with the Affordable Care Act. To keep people covered and quell consumer anger, President Barack Obama and many states allowed people to renew their old plans temporarily — including 73,000 in Maryland. But that offer has expired and now people like Raymond Liu have been thrust onto health exchanges where they must purchase new plans. (Cohn, 1/4)

The New York Times:
Success Of Kentucky’s Health Plan Comes With New Obstacles
In many ways, Kentucky, a poor state with a starkly unhealthy populace, has become a symbol of the Affordable Care Act’s potential. Largely because the state chose to expand Medicaid, the drop in the uninsured rate has been among the sharpest in the nation. Hospital revenues are up, health care jobs are multiplying and far more Kentuckians are getting preventive checkups and screenings, according to state officials. (Goodnough, 12/29)

The Associated Press:
Idaho Health Care Call Center To Lay Off 1,500
A technology company says it will lay off more than 1,500 employees at a Boise call center where workers handle questions about the federal health care law. The Idaho Statesman reports that Maximus Inc. has hired, laid off and rehired hundreds of employees at the call center since 2013. (1/3)

Some GOP governors have shown a willingness to negotiate with the federal government on the issue, but legislators are less interested. News outlets also look at specific efforts in Texas and Arizona.

The Washington Post:
Republicans In State Governments Plan Juggernaut Of Conservative Legislation
The unprecedented breadth of the Republican majority — the party now controls 31 governorships and 68 of 98 partisan legislative chambers — all but guarantees a new tide of conservative laws. ... there will be exceptions to the coming conservative juggernaut. Despite conservative opposition to Obamacare, some Republicans are debating whether and how to accept federal Medicaid expansion. Republican governors of Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, North Carolina and Tennessee have said they will try to persuade their legislators to accept federal funding, while Democratic governors in Montana and Pennsylvania will work with Republican-controlled legislatures in a similar vein. (Wilson, 1/2)

The Associated Press:
GOP Legislators Thwart Bids To Expand Medicaid
Governors across the political spectrum are hitting a roadblock in their bids to expand Medicaid with federal funds: Republican legislators who adamantly oppose "Obamacare." While some of these governors themselves have criticized the president's health care law in general, they've come to see one component — Medicaid expansion — as too generous to reject. But they're battling conservative lawmakers who say it's better to turn down billions of federal dollars than to expand Medicaid under the 2010 law. (Babington, 1/1)

The Associated Press:
Could Texas Win Block Medicaid Grant From Feds?
Gov.-elect Greg Abbott and many top conservatives support working with Washington to devise a federal block grant that would allow the state to remake Medicaid, a joint state-federal program that provides health care for the poor and disabled. Such an agreement could also earn Texas much of the up to $10 billion in annual subsidies that would have otherwise come via Medicaid expansion. That idea may shape Texas' renegotiations with the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services over an existing five-year, nearly $30 billion Medicaid waiver mostly used to reimburse hospitals for uninsured care and set to expire in September 2016. (Weissert, 1/1)

Arizona Republic:
Ariz. High Court Allows Medicaid Challenge To Advance
Arizona's legal battle over Medicaid expansion will be allowed to continue, the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday, meaning continued uncertainty for nearly 300,000 low-income Arizonans, the state budget and Arizona's hospitals. In a unanimous ruling, the high court permitted a challenge from 36 Republican state lawmakers to return to court for a decision on whether expansion of the state's health-insurance program for the poor was legally enacted. (Pitzl, 12/31)

The law's requirements that most Americans carry health insurance means that all filers must indicate whether they had coverage last year and got tax credits to help pay for it. Other media outlets look at how low-wage industries are hiring more part-timers to minimize the law's impact on their bottom lines and how big deductibles are leading some Americans to put off getting care.

The Wall Street Journal:
Affordable Care Act Creates A Trickier Tax Season
The law’s requirement that most Americans carry health insurance means all filers must indicate on federal tax forms whether they had coverage last year and got tax credits to help pay for it. Those who didn’t have coverage could face a fine ... Meanwhile, millions of Americans who got subsidies under the law may find they are getting smaller-than-expected refunds or owe the IRS because credits they received to offset their insurance premiums were too large. As many as half of the roughly 6.8 million Americans who got subsidies may have to refund money to the government, based on one estimate by tax firm H&R Block Inc. (Armour and Radnofsky, 1/1)

USA Today:
Some Businesses Use Part-Time To Meet Health Law
Many businesses in low-wage industries have hired more part-time workers and cut the hours of full-timers recently to soften the impact of new health law requirements that take effect Thursday, some consultants say. The strategies have had only a modest impact on job growth, which has accelerated substantially this year, but could take a somewhat bigger toll next year as firms gear up for an expanded health care mandate in 2016. ... Businesses in low-wage sectors, such as restaurants, retail and warehousing, are feeling bigger effects because health insurance represents an outsize share of their total employee costs, says Rob Wilson, head of Employco, a human resources outsourcing firm. (Davidson, 12/30)

USA Today:
Dilemma Over Deductibles: Costs Crippling Middle Class
Physician Praveen Arla is witnessing a reversal of health care fortunes: Poor, long-uninsured patients are getting Medicaid through Obamacare and finally coming to his office for care. But middle-class workers are increasingly staying away. ... "They're really worried about cost." It's a deep and common concern across the USA, where employer plans cover 60% of working-age Americans, or about 150 million people. Coverage long considered the gold standard of health insurance now often requires workers to pay so much out-of-pocket that many feel they must skip doctor visits, put off medical procedures, avoid filling prescriptions and ration pills — much as the uninsured have done. (Ungar and O'Donnell, 1/1)

Meanwhile, a year after the law's expansion of coverage took effect, the Los Angeles Times analyzes the changes --

Los Angeles Times:
Obamacare's Guaranteed Health Coverage Changes Lives In First Year
Like many working Americans, Lisa Gray thought she had good health insurance. That was until she was diagnosed with leukemia in mid-2013, and the self-employed businesswoman made a startling discovery: Her health plan didn't cover the chemotherapy she needed. "I thought I was going to die," Gray, 62, said recently, recalling her desperate scramble to get lifesaving drugs. Through a mix of temporary measures, doctors and patient advocates managed to keep Gray stable for a few months. But it was a new health care plan through the Affordable Care Act that Gray credits with saving her life. (Levey, 1/4)

Los Angeles Times:
Since Obamacare, L.A. County ER Visits Show Hospitals In 'State Of Flux'
A key measure of hospital emergency room use in Los Angeles County shows continued growth during the first six months of Obamacare, but also points to shifting patterns of where patients are choosing to receive urgent medical treatment. With the healthcare expansion last year, many are watching how the Affordable Care Act affects emergency room use. (Karlamangla and Menezes, 1/1)

In a change from tradition, the president will take a three-day tour to highlight his initiatives before his State of the Union address.

Bloomberg:
Obama Seeks Support Outside Capitol As Republicans Take Over
The barnstorming is a build-up to Obama’s State of the Union address on Jan. 20, following his two-week Hawaiian vacation, in the face of a Congress that has its own agenda. The Republicans take control of both houses for the first time in Obama’s presidency on Jan. 6, and will seek to put the president on the defensive by undoing his policies on issues ranging from immigration to health care. (Wilber, 1/4)

The New York Times:
Obama Plans 3-Day Tour To Preview State Of The Union
In the first few weeks of January, the Republicans plan to hold votes on the proposed Keystone XL pipeline and to try to repeal Mr. Obama’s chief legislative policy, the Affordable Care Act ... “The president is eager to get to work, and looks forward to working with the new Congress on policies that will make sure middle-class Americans are sharing in the economic recovery,” the White House said. “There are a number of issues we could make progress on, but the president is clear that he will not let this Congress undo important protections gained — particularly in areas of health care, Wall Street reform and the environment.” (Schmidt, 1/3)

Also, Politico profiled Kathleen Sebelius, the former head of the Department of Health and Human Services, who oversaw the troubled inauguration of the health law.

Politico:
Regrets On Obamacare? Sebelius Has Very Few
During the worst days of the Obamacare rollout last year, Kathleen Sebelius kept her spirits up by thinking about … Medicare. As the Obamacare website was crashing and conservative interest groups were shining the spotlight on canceled health plans, the embattled Health and Human Services secretary flashed back to the fierce battles over the creation of Medicare in the 1960s, when the American Medical Association fought its passage ... Now, she says, when the AMA speaks out about Medicare, it’s when the doctors are trying to prevent their Medicare payments from being cut. The lesson for future political leaders who might be thinking about the next ambitious social programs? Don’t shy away from them. (Nather, 12/29)

The Washington Post compares for-profit and nonprofit hospices on several measures, including the amount of money spent per patient. Other stories look at a rural doctor who makes house calls to dying patients, and at the lack of training for most caregivers who tend to frail elderly people in their homes.

The Washington Post:
Dying And Profits: The Evolution Of Hospice
The influx of for-profit companies into the hospice field has benefited patients, advocates say, because the commercial companies made big investments in technology, focused on efficiency and made care more accessible. But a Washington Post analysis of hundreds of thousands of U.S. hospice records indicates that, as those companies transformed a movement once dominated by community and religious organizations into a $17 billion industry, patient care suffered along the way. On several key measures, for-profit hospices as a group fall short of those run by nonprofit organizations. (Whoriskey and Keating, 12/26)

NPR:
Rural Doctor Launches Startup To Ease Pain Of Dying Patients
Dr. Michael Fratkin is getting a ride to work today from a friend. "It's an old plane. Her name's 'Thumper,' " says pilot Mark Harris, as he revs the engine of the tiny 1957 Cessna 182. Fratkin is an internist and specialist in palliative medicine. He's the guy who comes in when the cancer doctors first deliver a serious diagnosis. He manages medications to control symptoms like pain, nausea and breathlessness. And he helps people manage their fears about dying and make choices about what treatments they're willing — and not willing — to undergo. (Dembosky, 1/3)

Kaiser Health News:
As Caregiving Shifts To The Home, Scrutiny Is Lacking
California’s frail elderly and disabled residents increasingly are receiving care in their own homes, an arrangement that saves the government money and offers many people a greater sense of comfort and autonomy than life in an institution. Yet caregivers are largely untrained and unsupervised, even when paid by the state, leaving thousands of residents at risk of possible abuse, neglect and poor treatment, a Kaiser Health News investigation found. (Gorman, 1/5)

Kaiser Health News:
When Home And Health Are Just Out Of Reach
Donna Giron is frail. She has Crohn’s disease and uses a wheelchair to get around because walking exhausts her. But she doesn’t want to be in the nursing home where she has lived since May. Giron, 65, is looking to rent a small house in the industrial town in the Cleveland suburbs where she grew up. Using federal funds from a special project, thousands of elderly and disabled nursing home residents have been able to move into their own homes in recent years. The experimental project has reached people in 44 states, including more than 5,400 in Ohio. It connects people to the medical and living support they need to move into private homes, so that they can live independently. (Tribble, 1/5)

A selection of health policy stories from Florida, California, Georgia, Texas, New York, Virginia, the District of Columbia, Kansas and Missouri.

Miami Herald:
Florida Illegally Deprived Needy Kids Of Health Care, Judge Rules
A federal judge Wednesday declared Florida’s health care system for needy and disabled children to be in violation of several federal laws, handing a stunning victory to doctors and children’s advocates who have fought for almost a decade to force the state to pay pediatricians enough money to ensure impoverished children can receive adequate care. In his 153-page ruling, U.S. Circuit Judge Adalberto Jordan said lawmakers had for years set the state’s Medicaid budget at an artificially low level, causing pediatricians and other specialists for children to opt out of the insurance program for the needy. In some areas of the state, parents had to travel long distances to see specialists. (Marbin Miller, 12/31)

The Texas Tribune:
The Perry Legacy: Health Care
During his 14 years in office, Gov. Rick Perry has championed private-market health care solutions and criticized public programs like Medicaid for being inefficient. He has also led the state’s fight against the Affordable Care Act, which he has criticized as federal overreach. But as he wages such battles, he has presided over a state with the highest rate of uninsured in the country. (Ura and Walters, 12/28)

The Wall Street Journal:
Tending To Unmet Dental Needs, A Root Of Elder Hunger
For many homebound seniors, the biggest challenge to staving off hunger and getting needed nutrition isn’t having money to buy food or the physical or cognitive ability to prepare it. It is simply being able to chew. In one of the first programs of its kind in the U.S., nonprofit food-delivery service Citymeals-on-Wheels recently joined with Columbia University College of Dental Medicine to conduct a pilot study of meal recipients’ oral health. Funded with a $50,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, the research has included both phone interviews and dental house calls to low-income seniors, many of whom haven’t seen a dentist in years—sometimes decades. (Wilson, 1/1)

Bloomberg:
Texas Abortion Clinics Seen Facing Long Odds In Fight On Limits
Texas abortion clinics that persuaded a judge to throw out restrictions may face long odds in convincing a conservative U.S. appeals court to permanently block laws that would leave the second-largest U.S. state with only seven facilities, compared with 41 two years ago. The clinics this week will go before three judges appointed by Republican President George W. Bush, asking them to uphold the ruling that the law violates women’s constitutional right to an abortion. The U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans has repeatedly ruled against the clinics in earlier battles. (Brubaker Calkins, 1/5)

Kaiser Health News:
As Caregiving Shifts To The Home, Scrutiny Is Lacking
California’s frail elderly and disabled residents increasingly are receiving care in their own homes, an arrangement that saves the government money and offers many people a greater sense of comfort and autonomy than life in an institution. Yet caregivers are largely untrained and unsupervised, even when paid by the state, leaving thousands of residents at risk of possible abuse, neglect and poor treatment, a Kaiser Health News investigation found. (Gorman, 1/5)

Miami Herald:
Judge Rebukes Florida For Failing To Aid Foster Siblings
A child welfare judge in Miami has accused the state of denying necessary psychiatric treatment to abused and neglected children in its care, and has ordered Florida social service administrators to appear before him and explain why they have “no duty” to help sick foster kids. (Marbin Miller, 1/4)

The Washington Post:
CareFirst Is Ordered To Spend $56M On Community Health Needs By D.C. Regulators
D.C. insurance regulators on Tuesday ordered the Washington region’s largest health insurer to spend $56 million on community health needs in the District, calling the billion-dollar cash reserves of CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield legally “excessive.” The order, signed by acting insurance commissioner Chester A. McPherson, is a landmark moment in a decade-long battle over the reserve holdings belonging to a nonprofit subsidiary of CareFirst. The company has long said the reserve is a prudent hedge against possible catastrophes. (DeBonis, 12/30)

USA Today:
Keep Medical Device Tax: Our View
Not many issues get strong bipartisan support in Congress these days. One big exception, though, is the tax on medical devices, a 2.3% levy on everything from tongue depressors to artificial hip joints. Republican or Democrat, most of Congress hates it, and the tax is a top candidate for repeal in the new session that begins Tuesday. That would be a serious mistake. (1/4)

USA Today:
Tax Destroys Jobs And Innovation: Opposing View
I was humbled to receive in November the National Medal of Technology and Innovation at the White House for the development of life-changing medical devices. Traveling to our nation's capital, I couldn't help but think: There is no way I could have had the same impact if the tax on medical devices was in place when I got started over 50 years ago. Simply put, the medical device tax is destroying job creation and innovation, and as a result, patient care is suffering. (Tom Fogarty, 1/4)

The New York Times' Upshot:
Do No Harm? It May Be Hard To Avoid With Health Law’s Medicare Cuts
The Affordable Care Act made changes to government payments for Medicare services that are expected to save tens to hundreds of billions of dollars per year. This sounds like a good thing — and it very well may be — but only if those spending cuts don’t cause harm. Research suggests they just might. As any business would, hospitals often respond to reduced revenue by cutting costs. They especially tend to cut back on staff, according to a number of researchers. (Austin Frakt, 1/5)

The Washington Post:
How The GOP Presidential Candidates Will Talk About Obamacare
Every result of the law may not be perfect, but it has been an overwhelming success. Just about every prediction Republicans made has turned out false. The economy hasn’t tanked, 10 million people were newly insured even before this year’s open enrollment, premium increases are slowing, overall health costs are slowing, and conservatives looking for specific evidence of the law’s failure don’t quite know what to say. (Paul Waldman, 12/26)

Bloomberg:
Watching The Republican Congress's First 100 Days
Demands for the repeal of Obamacare or the withdrawal of the immigration order are empty gestures to satisfy the Republican Party's base.
Eventually, pressure to offer credible alternatives will build. ... On health care, Republicans could enact some conservative-leaning modifications to the law that the White House might accept. Yet that would be unacceptable to some congressional Republicans who continue to dream of killing Obamacare. (Albert R. Hunt, 1/4)

Bloomberg:
Let States Dare To Make Health-Care Mistakes
The death of Vermont’s effort to install single-payer health care is revealing -- and not only for what it says about the feasibility of such government-run systems in the U.S. It also shows conservatives a way forward if the Supreme Court voids broad swaths of the Affordable Care Act in 2015. ... The temptation for conservatives will be to argue that the federal government should restrict the kinds of changes states can pursue, to prevent others from taking the Vermont route. In the past, some conservatives have in effect made this point: States should be given the freedom and flexibility to pursue solutions that serve their citizens best, this argument goes, so long as federal funds aren't used to support policies that stray from free-market principles. Such restrictions would be wrong-headed. (Lanhee Chen, 12/30)

The Wall Street Journal:
Fannie Med Implodes
Liberals claim ObamaCare is “working,” whatever that means, but the reality is that the law is seeding the insurance markets with land mines that will explode over time. The sudden detonation of a taxpayer-backed insurer in Iowa and Nebraska is an early warning. ... Call it the Solyndra of ObamaCare. (12/28)

Bloomberg:
Medicaid Is Too Cheap
On New Year's Day, an Obamacare provision that temporarily boosted Medicaid payments to primary-care doctors expired. The pay doctors receive for seeing those patients will drop by an estimated 43 percent on average. The change could cause more doctors to stop seeing people on Medicaid, which covers the poorest Americans. Conservatives will undoubtedly present the change as further proof that Medicaid, which is expanding thanks to the health-care law, is inherently flawed. There's another interpretation: If the goal is to cover lots of people at minimum cost, Medicaid is extremely effective. If anything, it's too cheap. (Christopher Flavelle, 1/4)

AL.com:
Bentley Should Keep An Open Mind On Medicaid Funds
Barely had [Alabama] Governor Robert Bentley uttered the words "block fund" as a way of getting more money for Medicaid when his Tea Party advisors urged him to recant. We urge him to stick with his thinking. Bentley suggested that while he still resists urgings to expand Medicaid under Obamacare, a block grant of federal funds could help with the state's budget mess. The difference, in brief, is that the Obamacare funding comes with future obligations, and block fund money doesn't. (1/4)

Los Angeles Times:
Obamacare Could Help Millions Of American Smokers To Kick The Habit
Did you know that the Affordable Care Act may be the single most important anti-smoking initiative in the country? Of course not. That's because Obamacare's supposed friends, the Democrats, have been too craven to talk about its benefits, while its enemies, the Republicans, want only to depict it as a "disaster" without addressing its many provisions. (Michael Hiltzik, 1/2)

Annals of Internal Medicine:
The Past And Future Office Of The Surgeon General
Some argue that changes in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Public Health Service have diminished the power of the U.S. Surgeon General over the years. In this commentary, former Surgeon General David Satcher contends that the Office of the Surgeon General has actually gained credibility and influence with the American people as the reporting structure has evolved. (Dr. David Satcher, 12/30)

The New York Times:
Doctor, Shut Up And Listen
A doctor’s ability to explain, listen and empathize has a profound impact on a patient’s care. Yet, as one survey found, two out of every three patients are discharged from the hospital without even knowing their diagnosis. Another study discovered that in over 60 percent of cases, patients misunderstood directions after a visit to their doctor’s office. And on average, physicians wait just 18 seconds before interrupting patients’ narratives of their symptoms. Evidently, we have a long way to go. (Nirmal Joshi, 1/4)

Los Angeles Times:
Ignore Predictions Of Lethal Pandemics And Pay Attention To What Really Matters
Prophets of doom have been telling us for decades that a deadly new pandemic — of bird flu, of SARS or MERS coronavirus, and now of Ebola — is on its way. Why are we still listening? If you look back at the furor raised at many distinguished publications — Nature, Science, Scientific American, National Geographic — back in, say, 2005, about a potential bird flu (H5N1) pandemic, you wonder what planet they were on. Nature ran a special section titled — “Avian flu: Are we ready?” — that began, ominously, with the words “Trouble is brewing in the East” and went on to present a mock aftermath report detailing catastrophic civil breakdown. (Wendy Orent, 1/3)

The New York Times' Upshot:
How Losing A Job Can Be Bad For Your Health
Being out of work can be advantageous for people’s physical health. Unemployed people have more time to exercise and cook at home, and less money to buy cigarettes or junk food. ... Yet there are signs that the most recent recession might have been different. ... Because the recovery has not brought significant numbers of new jobs, people may have settled into less healthy behaviors because they assume they will not work again soon. (Cain Miller, 12/23)

Bloomberg:
Next Year's Ebola Crisis
One of the many ways the world failed to distinguish itself in 2014 was with its response to the Ebola crisis. It cannot afford to be so late, slow and fatally inadequate next year -- with Ebola, which continues to kill people in West Africa, or with the next global pandemic. (12/31)